Empower your employees

Helping you reach your goals

Acoustic Guitar 3: Runs and Riffs

CCOM 7402

If you’ve been playing guitar for a while, you may get tired of simply changing from chord to chord. You want to learn how to play single note patterns that can take you from one chord to the next in a more interesting way. You may be performing with other players, and you want to learn how you could even play a ‘solo’ in the middle of a song.

In Runs and Riffs, you will learn how to get around your guitar more comfortably; how to identify individual notes that fit the chord progression, and what notes you can play that will fit into a song properly. You’ll learn some more basic music theory- but not enough to hurt your playing. You’ll learn how to identify the scale your song is being played in, and which notes fit into that scale, which ones don’t and why.

In Riffs and Runs, students will be encouraged to bring their favourite material - covers or their own originals, to learn how to add runs and riffs into the music tastefully.

Materials

Students are required to bring an acoustic guitar, a tuner, and a capo to class.

About the instructor

Sandy MacKay has been playing guitar for more than 30 years, and he plays a variety of other instruments including double bass, banjo, mandolin, piano and bagpipes. He is a performing musician, and also works as a session musician on other artists’ recordings. His most recent solo work can be heard at SandyMackay.ca.